Oct. 22, 2015
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SPRINGFIELD - The Missouri State men's soccer team (4-5-3, 1-2-1 MVC) ventures to Evansville, Ind. on Saturday to face the Purples Aces (2-11, 0-4 MVC) in its final conference road match of the season at 7 p.m. MSU is currently in fifth place in the Valley, while Evansville is in sixth.
The Bears are coming off of a 4-0 loss at Bradley last Saturday. Although MSU was unable to break the Braves' defense, the Bears fired a season-high 22 shots while the Braves only took eight. Leading the Bears in shots taken was freshman Jake Buckle, who took three shot attempts, all on goal. Buckle leads MSU this season with 25 shots.
MSU leads the series over Evansville 15-9-3, while posting a 7-3-1 record on the road. The Bears are 4-1 in the last five meetings at Evansville, with their most recent meeting in 2013 seeing a 1-0 double-overtime victory. Jack Griffin, now a junior, found himself open with the ball 20 yards out, sending the ball into the far post in the 108th minute. Griffin is the only Bear this season to score against a conference opponent - tallying a game-winning goal against SIU Edwardsville with two seconds left in overtime and a lone MSU goal against Drake in a 2-1 loss.
The last meeting between the Bears and the Purple Aces was in Springfield last season and saw MSU capture the MVC regular season title after a 1-0 overtime win over the Purple Aces.
The Bears will wrap-up their non-conference schedule next week with road games at Nebraska Omaha (Oct. 28) and Oral Roberts (Nov. 2) before coming home for their final match of the regular season against Central Arkansas (Nov. 7) at 7 p.m.
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